Hernan Toro

CEO & Master Goldsmith

My Journey

It all began in Colombia when I was a kid. I would play in my best friend house while his father worked in a small room that he used as his jewelry shop. The noise that would come from his room struck my curiosity. Seeing him work and create beautiful pieces of jewelry really caught my attention. So every chance that I got, I would walk into that small room and sit very quietly in a corner. In admiration, I watched as he transformed gold bars, gold wires, and colored stones into precious pieced of art, it was astonishing! Eventually my father became close friends with my friend’s father and began selling jewelry where he worked.

This allowed my father to make a little extra money and it gave me the opportunity to see the whole process step by step. The process would begin with the customer’s order, then my father would explain to the jeweler the customer’s liking. That initiated the design phase, followed by the production of the piece, and lastly the reveal of the finished product accompanied by the amazement on the customers face when my father delivered the jewelry.

In the 80’s my parents immigrated to New York. One morning my father was reading the newspaper and had read an advertisement about a school for jewelry located in Manhattan My father offered me to learn about jewelry at this school, I was very interested so I accepted.

On my first class, the teacher patiently explained me how to make a ring by marking a lines on a brass plate, then cut along the overhead lines, bend the metal to make it round, and finally weld it for a finished product. it was my turn to create a ring based on how he had explained it to me, once I put my hand on the tools, everything the teacher had just explained faded from my mind, all I could visualize was my childhood memories in that magical small room back at my friend house.

That was all I could visualize at the moment. Once I finished my first creation, the teacher was confused. He asked me if I had ever made rings before. I had told him it I didn’t, that was my first time. The teacher was amazed at the fact that I made a beautiful ring using a different technique from what he had taught me. Out of everyone else, I manufactured the best finished product. I studied at three more schools, and got to know and understand the jewelry industry.

I worked in Manhattan for different companies; in the 90’s I opened my own jewelry shop where I was designing, creating, and producing jewelry for different local jewelry stores.
In 2003 I decided to make the move to Orlando FL with my family and was given the opportunity to work with a well-know jeweler. As time passed by, my name became well know too. It was then that I decided to reopen what I had begun in New York, but this time with public service. In 2010 was the start of HT Design Jewelers.